Hate Crime Is a Life-Changing Event for Young Charity Director

Gregory Lewis never met Matthew Shepard. But when Mr. Shepard was murdered in October 1998 in an anti-gay hate crime, his death profoundly changed the course of Mr. Lewis’s life.

At the time, Mr. Lewis was 23 and looking for direction. As a teenager, he graduated from a high school on Long Island, in New York, and moved to Los Angeles where he began working toward a degree in architecture at the University of Southern California. But a change of heart, along with an intense bout of depression, prompted Mr. Lewis to leave school and head to Washington. There, he hoped to begin a new life where he could devote himself to returning to college to pursue a degree in social work.

When he saw the first reports of Matthew Shepard’s murder, Mr. Lewis, who is gay, was overcome by sorrow — and felt compelled to devote his life to helping to promote acceptance and combat hate. That desire was sparked during an outdoor vigil for Mr. Shepard at the Capitol a few days after his murder.

“I ended up walking home saying, There’s stuff I can do.” Mr. Lewis recalls. “I can do something to make change in this country so nothing like this ever happens again.”

That desire to combat hate led Mr. Lewis to pursue a career in advocacy — a career that has since led him to the Matthew Shepard Foundation, a Casper, Wyo., charity that is headed by Mr. Shepard’s mother, Judy.

The foundation this winter hired Mr. Lewis, 31, to become its first managing director. He spent his first two months on the job working pro bono and plans to work at a reduced salary until the foundation is able to increase its revenue.

“The foundation doesn’t have the money right now,” says Mr. Lewis, who manages the foundation’s five-person staff from a satellite office in Denver. “This is really the heart of community service. This is an organization, but it’s also a passion.”

That passion is stoked by an intense bond with Ms. Shepard, whom he met while working for the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington advocacy group that focuses on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues. Ms. Shepard and her husband, Dennis, created the Matthew Shepard Foundation in December 1998 with donations that were sent to the family after Matthew’s death. The foundation works to promote acceptance through educational programs and through public appearances by Ms. Shepard.

Mr. Lewis, who managed the Human Rights Campaign’s development and membership division before he was hired by the Shepard Foundation, frequently offered Ms. Shepard advice on how to improve and expand the foundation’s operations.

For Ms. Shepard, a former schoolteacher and homemaker who had no previous nonprofit-management experience, his advice has been valuable in her charity’s start-up phase. But she realized in 2005 that she did not have enough time or experience to guide the organization on her own.

She says she turned to Mr. Lewis because she trusted him, and because he had experience building successful fund-raising programs at the Human Rights Campaign. “The best lesson I’ve ever learned as a fund raiser is to diversify your revenue streams so you are not too reliant on one source,” he says.

He plans to bring a similar approach to the Matthew Shepard Foundation, which has until now relied heavily on income derived from Ms. Shepard’s speaking engagements to cover its $550,000 annual budget.

Already, he is making progress toward that goal — a recent fund-raising event took in $180,000, far more than the group had ever raised from a single event.

That is allowing the foundation to start new programs, such as one called Small Bear, Big Dreams, that will help children learn about accepting others. It is also stepping up its work with high-school and college groups that try to build alliances between gay and straight students, and plans to expand its Web site so it can offer chat sessions where young people can talk with experts to get answers to their questions.

In an interview with The Chronicle, Mr. Lewis talked about his new role:

How did you meet Judy Shepard?

There was a march on Washington and [the Human Rights Campaign] played a large part in that. As part of the event, there was a concert at RFK Stadium and I had been monitoring the front rows to schmooze the major donors up front. During the concert, I got a call that the Shepards were moving through to the front row and they would like to see the concert.

This was completely unexpected, but I had two seats set aside. They sat down and the crowds were so crazy that they were crowding over Judy. Finally, I offered to take them back to the green room behind the stage to get away from the crowds. We ended up hanging out for three hours behind the stage. We talked quite a bit and I was able to tell them that I came to HRC because of what had happened to their son. My life had been so irrevocably changed because of what had happened to Matthew.

It was a surreal moment because there was this event that had so damaged their lives but had such a profound effect on mine.

What struck you about her?

People would come up to her to tell her their intense feelings. You would expect she was like Cher or something. And she would listen to every single story. She just makes herself available to this. I don’t know how anyone can do that. I’m overwhelmed and she just handles it with such grace.

Everywhere she goes she gets packed rooms. She goes to places in Montana. She goes to Mississippi. She has spoken to over a million people in the last seven years.

She has affected people unlike anyone else in this movement over the last seven years.

What prompted you to take on this challenge?

Judy had intimated to me that something was missing and that she needed help.

They have never been able to build a strong fund-raising program. They were doing amazing work but they were stagnant and not growing.

I told her, “You need somebody who is going to come in and handle the day to day while you are going out and speaking to people. You need someone who is going to go out and manage the staff, which you can’t do because you’re out on the road half the year.”

She said, “Well, what about you?”

It was just one of those “aha” moments that you realize this is where life is leading you. This was so blatantly clear that this is what I was meant to do.

Do you worry about working for such a close friend?

It’s a partnership where I work for her and my job is to bring the foundation to a place where she wants it to go.

As long as we are honest with each other, we know it’s going to work. And that’s how it’s been. Communication and honesty are keys. We’ve been able to get a lot done already.

ABOUT GREGORY LEWIS, MANAGING DIRECTOR, MATTHEW SHEPARD FOUNDATION

Education: Mr. Lewis studied architecture at the University of Southern California.

Previous employment: Spent seven years working for the Human Rights Campaign, in Washington. Most recently, he oversaw the organization’s development and membership division.

What he’s reading: “I’ve been so busy the last three months that I haven’t read anything,” he says. When he does have the time, Mr. Lewis enjoys autobiographies and the Harry Potter novels.